Who Cares for the Elderly?

Emily K. Abel is Adjunct Associate Professor in the School of Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles. She has published several books and is co-editor (with Margaret K. Nelson) of Circles of Care: Work and Identity in Women's Lives.

• Acknowledgments 1. Introduction 2. The Policy Framework of Caregiving 3. Family Care in the United States since 1800 4. Methods of Studying Caregiving 5. The Caregivers' Perspective 6. Mothers and Daughters 7. Work and Leisure 8. Brokering Services 9. The Ambiguities of Social Support 10. An Agenda for Change Appendix Bibliography Index

"[A] timely exposÉ of how women are forced to bear extra care-giving burdens by the inadequacy and indifference of U.S. long-term care systems."-Ms. "As Abel points out, society still expects adult daughters to provide live-in, long-term care for their elderly parents-often at the expense of career and private life.... Some form of financial compensation or relief, support services (transportation, day care centers, etc.), education and therapy groups for caregivers, are among the author's proposals for easing the daughters' burdens."-Publishers Weekly